Why make an ambassador PNG*

[oggbashan]

* PNG is Persona Non Grata, a diplomatic term used to expel a foreign diplomat for activities against the country in which he is representing his own country.

Is it usually used for expelling known spies caught in the act, or as retaliation for diplomats expelled.

The British Ambassador was doing his job, reporting, in confidence, to London his personal opinion of the operation of the White House. Most countries, including the USA, expect their ambassadors to be candid and forthright in their reports back home for very limited circulation in confidence. Leaking those private remarks has been a great disservice, not just to the relationship between the UK and US, but to senior diplomats from other countries too. If they cannot express their opinions without them appearing in the media, they cannot accurately advise their own governments and that makes their role pointless.

It has been known for decades that spymasters try to read the ambassadors mail. German and Japanese diplomatic messages were intercepted by the Allies during WW2. Even embassies of friendly countries have been targetted by spies.

But - any diplomatic message obtained by spying was treated with caution as disclosure could jeopardize the spy or the spying system and lead to the closure of that source. The US will have known that critical reports on many US presidents from the British Ambassador to London have been made for decades.

But the current US President's response has been extreme. Without using the coded term PNG he has made it clear that the British Ambassador is excluded from the White House and any discussions with the US administration. That has made the British Ambassador's role impossible to do.

It is an extreme act that has been very rarely used against any Ambassador from a friendly or unfriendly country unless and until war is declared. It has damaged not just the UK, but every diplomatic representation in Washington.

 

[where_is_RUTH]

Who benefits

Ironically 45 clearly showed that the assessment was pretty accurate.

 

[oggbashan]

Who benefits

Ironically 45 clearly showed that the assessment was pretty accurate.

Russia and/or China.

 

[jaF0]

Dude should be Knighted, then made PM.

 

[oggbashan]

Dude should be Knighted, then made PM.

Knighted? He already was for past services.

 

[phrodeau]

President Trump gives little credence to the US intelligence services or mainstream media, but wholesale swallows what’s printed in the Daily Mail.

 

[Paul_Chance]

Cui bono is always a good question to ask and I would assume the government of the UK is actively trying to track the leaker. At this point, anything as to the individual and their motivation is just speculation on my part, so I will skip that.

Here is what baffles me. This is 2019. Everyone who has ever read a news story knows that all communications, regardless of the medium, are subject to being leaked, either from the inside or via penetration from the outside. Knowing this, here is rule one when you're dealing with sensitive information, especially negative information. DON'T FREAKING WRITE IT DOWN. If you want to call someone inept or incompetent pick up that secure phone on your desk, or hop on a jet and find a SCIF somewhere.

If you write it down, write it down with less inflammatory language so when (not if, but when) it leaks, it won't blow up in your face. It does make me question the competence of the former Ambassador and belies a certain level of unwarranted arrogance and ignorance on his part.

I manage complex software integrations - I am not a diplomat or an ambassador or a president, but here is the simple truth, regardless of position or organization. If a member of one of my project teams, in a communication that leaked, said I was inept or incompetent and I found out about it, they would be fired so fast their head would spin. If I couldn't personally fire them (and sometimes I can't because they're not my employees), then I would unhesitatingly ice-box them. Put them in a small office and cut them out of the project. That is just the way it works.

If you have a problem with how I run the project to the degree that you think I am incompetent or inept. Suck it up and do your job or resign. You don't get to stay in place and we act like everything is hunky-dory. You can have your professional and personal opinions. You can communicate those opinions. But, be professional, use professional language.

I've seen plenty of people who can call you an asshat in professional language.

And I don't like Trump, LOL, that's just the way the world works and I would have assumed every ambassador knows that. Especially an ambassador.

Best of luck to the UK in findng the leaker.

 

[oggbashan]

Cui bono is always a good question to ask and I would assume the government of the UK is actively trying to track the leaker. At this point, anything as to the individual and their motivation is just speculation on my part, so I will skip that.

...

Best of luck to the UK in findng the leaker.

It is very unlikely that anyone in the UK government on the very short list to receive the ambassador's reports is likely to have leaked it. The number of recipients is very small and easily identified.

It is more likely that the ambassador's communications were hacked into. If that is true, all diplomatic messaging services from any country are at risk and the skills required for that suggest an unfriendly government, rather than a lone hacker.

All diplomats from any country will now be worried that their communications are at risk, and in Washington every embassy will be concerned that past messages could annoy President Trump. The result is that diplomatic exchanges between countries are potentially compromised and that makes the world much unsafer than it was.

What will be investigated in depth is how that message or messages were sent from Washington to London. If they were sent as hard copy by hand of messenger? How were they intercepted? If electronically, how was a secure system broken into?

Every diplomat, serving wherever, will now be worried about their communication methods. What was reported was candid but no surprise. Much more sensitive messages are out there.

 

[where_is_RUTH]

Russia and/or China.

Er! No.

This is a British problem.

 

[oggbashan]

Er! No.

This is a British problem.

No. It is a problem for all diplomats, especially those working in Washington.

 

[where_is_RUTH]

No. It is a problem for all diplomats, especially those working in Washington.

Now it is, yes.

But it started as a British political civil service issue (of a fairly small readership)

 

[Desiremakesmeweak]

Yeah... no one listen to me will you.

I was on record here MONTHS ago saying that the UK people will 'blow stuff up' on their fucking way out the fucking door.

They're all pissed because of Boris, because of Nigel, because the Novichok was theirs, because they're stupid and inept and chaotic and dysfunctional, because they GOT CAUGHT with the Chris Steele bullshit, and because the public, especially the UK Conservatives are fucking sick and tired of the lot of them and have begun to kick them all OUT.

Who gives a flying fuck who leaked it??!

You wait till you hear about ('cause you'll not ever get to see any of it) the HUGE VAST archived files from A DOZEN Intelligence Agencies from A DOZEN countries that Wikileaks has with facts and dates of every single dumbfuck corrupt polly around the place, where they were compromised and by whom and with what or over what issue/matter. And that includes UK judges - tons of them.

What a fucking mess.

I'm pissed off because I CARE about the Brit law on account I once had something to do with Lincoln's INN clerking. Huh.

Everybody in the whole fucking world in foreign affairs or intercepts and so on knows EXACTLY what is in everyone's mail and email all the way from the top posted ambassador to the pissant gazetted local lawyer who deals with embassy local police 'issues' such as when a dumfuck MI6 agent gets his ass kicked when he tries to break into a Hell's Angels HQ or lieutenant's office and gets discovered. Er, that last matter, ...Check!

 

[Dumpington]

oggbashan writes: "But the current US President's response has been extreme."

I disagree. An ambassador who has insulted his host should be replaced at once by the nation he represents. His is NOT an elective office!

phrodeau writes: "President Trump gives little credence to the US intelligence services or mainstream media, but wholesale swallows what’s printed in the Daily Mail."

You make an excellent point, phrodeau. But did the ambassador immediately go to the White House to DENY the story, or perhaps tell the president that he apologizes for what has been published? If not, then perhaps he should return to Great Britain and allow some other ambassador to replace him.

The United States and Great Britain are close allies, and have been so for well-over a century! Not every ambassador is going to like every president and/or prime-minister, but it's a sensitive job that requires a trust & mutual respect. Once that's gone you can't easily restore it.

 

[oggbashan]

oggbashan writes: "But the current US President's response has been extreme."

I disagree. An ambassador who has insulted his host should be replaced at once by the nation he represents. His is NOT an elective office!

...

I agree that the ambassador should have been replaced, probably recalled to London by the British Government, as soon as his opinions were in the public domain.

He can't deny or apologize for his opinions expressed because they are the truth as he sees it. He can only express regret that they were made public. Those views are shared by many inside and outside the US.

The White House should have asked, privately, for the British to replace him. Instead their reaction has been very public and damaging, making an unfortunate situation much worse, and confirming the ambassador's expressed opinions. If what an ambassador says in private is made public then any diplomat is at risk if they are doing their job properly.

 

[BotanyBoy]

But the current US President's response has been extreme. Without using the coded term PNG he has made it clear that the British Ambassador is excluded from the White House and any discussions with the US administration.

It is an extreme act that has been very rarely used against any Ambassador from a friendly or unfriendly country unless and until war is declared. It has damaged not just the UK, but every diplomatic representation in Washington.

It's not extreme, I usually stop doing bidnizz with or inviting folks over who shit talk me behind my back.

Do you associate with people who are assholes to you??

Most people don't.

Russia and/or China.

How???

No. It is a problem for all diplomats, especially those working in Washington.

Sucks for them and their TDS.

 

[Dumpington]

oggbashan writes: "The White House should have asked, privately, for the British to replace him. Instead their reaction has been very public and damaging, making an unfortunate situation much worse, and confirming the ambassador's expressed opinions."

You make some valid points, oggbashan.

And for that very reason, Donald Trump would have made a TERRIBLE ambassador representing the United States in Great Britain! He lacks the necessary even-temperment that being an ambassador requires! But Donald Trump is NOT our ambassador - he's our PRESIDENT - and the entire world knows by now that Trump will hit back HARD if he's insulted. No, I don't think for one minute that the ambassador ever expected his remarks to go public, but once they did it was up to HIM to remedy the situation by either denying the report or to have profusely apologized!

As is, that kind of behavior destroys an ambassador's credibility with his host country, and he should have immediately been recalled. Back when George Washington was president, Revolutionary France sent Edmond Charles "Citizen" Genet to be its ambassador to America. Genet was young, bombastic, & utterly lacking in the subtle art of diplomacy! President Washington did NOT like him, and ordered him sent home. But by then, Genet was no longer welcomed in France, and would have been guillotined had he returned. And so instead the president granted him asylum, and Genet ended his days as a gentleman farmer living in New York state.

 

[oggbashan]

It's not extreme, I usually stop doing bidnizz with or inviting folks over who shit talk me behind my back.

Do you associate with people who are assholes to you??

Most people don't.



...

That's what diplomats have to do, all over the world.

Many countries' leaders are assholes you wouldn't want anywhere near your kids.

 

[Paul_Chance]

Every person in the diplomatic corps of any nation knows and understands that their electronic communications are at constant risk, both from private hackers and nation state adversaries. That is why they have IT and electronic security teams who are in a daily contest with electronic intrusion in it's many forms. If it was a "hack" then it should surprise no one who has paid any attention for the last, oh, hundred years. Electronic communications are under constant probing and attack by rooms full of geeks whose whole job that is.

I doubt it was a hack or an electronic intercept of any sort for one very simple reason. Imagine you are in charge of a nation state or private team who has managed to compromise the secure communications of another nation state (friend or enemy). Why in the world would you leak it - all you do then is trigger security sweeps and changes in systems to stop the leak and you have to start all over. The information that flows down a compromised channel is far too valuable to burn an electronic source on a tabloid story.

The memo's from 2017 forward is a weirdly specific set of data, which would lead me to be more inclined to an inside job - the usual motivations apply (MICE - Money, Ideology, Compromise or Ego). To imagine that the hidden functionaries of the British civil or foreign service is immune to this is naive. People are people and the same rules apply to them all. They can be compromised or they can compromise themselves. I have no idea what the British classification system is, but I would imagine these were the equivalent of a high level US classification - probably at Confidential Level or Secret). That means it should be a limited set of suspects (LOL - unless they emailed them to Hilary Clinton) and they should roll it up pretty quickly, unless the security in the UK diplomatic corp sucks which is always possible.

 

[JackLuis]

Trump don't need no stinking Diplomats! He is King now!

 

[BotanyBoy]

That's what diplomats have to do, all over the world.

Many countries' leaders are assholes you wouldn't want anywhere near your kids.

Heads of state aren't diplomats though.

Certainly not ours.

I agree, but every countries leader is a human, and nobody likes the person talking shit about them behind their back.

 

[Dumpington]

Paul Chance observes: "...unless the security in the UK diplomatic corp sucks which is always possible."

Yes, that's certainly a possibility.

JackLuis writes: "Trump don't need no stinking Diplomats! He is King now!"

No kings here, Jack - not since 1776!

BotanyBoy writes: "Heads of state aren't diplomats though."

True enough. And if a diplomat/ambassador wants access to a head of state, it's up to the diplomat to make himself (or herself) acceptable (and not the other way around!)

"...every country's leader is a human, and nobody likes the person talking shit about them behind their back."

Absolutely right! If this guy was chosen to be Great Britain's ambassador to the Democratic Party, he could get away with saying stuff like that. But that's NOT what he is!

 

[jaF0]

I agree that the ambassador should have been replaced, probably recalled to London by the British Government, as soon as his opinions were in the public domain.

I disagree. He should have been commended highly, by the Queen Mum herself and his comments should have been echoed by her. Donny is an asshole through and through and that needs to be voiced loudly worldwide.

If there was a hack, it was most likely done at Donny's command.

 

[oggbashan]

...

BotanyBoy writes: "Heads of state aren't diplomats though."

True enough. And if a diplomat/ambassador wants access to a head of state, it's up to the diplomat to make himself (or herself) acceptable (and not the other way around!)

"...every country's leader is a human, and nobody likes the person talking shit about them behind their back."

Absolutely right! If this guy was chosen to be Great Britain's ambassador to the Democratic Party, he could get away with saying stuff like that. But that's NOT what he is!

And the British Ambassador to the US has been good at his job and acceptable to the White House UNTIL someone leaked his confidential advice. One needs to know WHO did it, and WHY?

 

[BotanyBoy]

Absolutely right! If this guy was chosen to be Great Britain's ambassador to the Democratic Party, he could get away with saying stuff like that. But that's NOT what he is!

The deranged left probably thinks it is, and the EU colony formerly known as the UK is largely run by them.

And the British Ambassador to the US has been good at his job and acceptable to the White House UNTIL someone leaked his confidential advice. One needs to know WHO did it, and WHY?

The EU better figure that out.

 

[KeithD]

He wasn't PNG'd, was he? (I know PNG; my father was PNG'd once and we had to move out of the country on a couple of day's notice.) No formal action was taken before he resigned, I think. It's all probably a relief for him. Although to Ogg's question, I've heard that this was more an internal UK thing--that he was hacked and quoted in the context of political struggles at home.

What he was quoted as saying is normal for secret diplomatic exchanges. Ambassadors are supposed to be candid in their advice to the home government and the ambassador didn't say anything about Trump that everyone doesn't know already.